Anne Frank (C4)

THE reason that the story of Anne Frank has been dramatised so often is a simple one - it remains a powerful and moving story no matter how many times it's related.

The true story of the Jewish families who hid in an attic from the occupying Nazis in wartime Amsterdam is a familiar one: Anne's diary has sold more than 30 million copies, been translated into more than 60 languages and, after the Bible, is the most widely read non-fiction book in the world.

It needs no frills or fancy direction when translated to film, TV or stage. Some might ask why bother to film it again if the makers have nothing new to add. But Anne's story is a timely reminder of the horror of war and man's inhumanity to his man.

This TV movie proved a straightforward telling, based on Melissa Muller's biography of Anne Frank as well as original research and interviews by Kirk Ellis. There was no holding back on the horrors as the families, after their hiding place was discovered, were shipped to labour camps and concentration camps.

When we first see Anne (Hannah Taylor Gordon, a nice balance of freshness and knowingness) she is a carefree schoolgirl, living a normal life with a loving family. Her father Otto (Ben Kingsley, bringing necessary gravitas to the role) tells her that "good people and bad people have one thing in common - they both make mistakes, only good people can admit their mistakes and learn from them".

A guest dressing up as Adolf Hitler at a birthday party in 1939 causes much merriment but, gradually, we see the Franks and other families realise that life is going to change as "the curtain of war falls over Europe". A suggestion to send the children to England for safety is rejected, although Otto rearranges his affairs so his business still exists but he doesn't.

Eventually, the Franks and their friends take up residence in "hidden" attic rooms above an office, with friend Miep Gies (Lili Taylor) bringing them food and news of the outside world.

All the time Anne is going through puberty and recording everything that happens in her precious diary, protesting that "I am not like other girls, I am me."

The time in hiding was efficiently depicted as we witness the inevitably bickering resulting from living at such close quarters 24 hours a day and the feeling of helplessness and frustration at their self-imprisonment.

Where other versions have ended with their hiding place being discovered and the families taken away by the Nazis, this TV movie had the space to follow their terrible suffering, along with thousands of others, in the death camps. Otto Frank, separated from the rest of his family, lived to return to Amsterdam and read Anne's diary, which she'd left behind and was kept safe by Miep Gies. It's a sad fact that Anne is believed to have died of typhus just two weeks before the camp was liberated.